Game: Silence

SilenceFinished Silence.

Silence is an adventure and the successor of The Whispered World. After an airstrike, you wake up in the land of Silence. In this, a false queen claimed reign who sent her Seekers to search for the splinter of the mirror in the throne room. This splinter is said to have magical powers. The false queen needs this splinter to claim her final power. You play Noah/Sedwick and Renie, his sister, to find your way in Silence. You join the rebellion against the false queen, find the splinter and try to get back into your own world.

Silence is a decent adventure, though the “adventure”-parts are very, very reduced: there is basically zero inventory, resulting in very limited interaction options. The main process is simply to click on the hot spots and see the story evolving. As such, the demands of the game are very, very low. It plays rather more like an interactive movie.

The story continues the theme of The Whispered World meaning: it beautiful, melancholic, sad and adorable at the very same time. Though the game is over in a couple of hours. The game does not bear any real challenges and thus lacks to deliver any feeling of success or mastery on some “riddles”.

Pros:
* Nice story (with a bitter ending though).
* Gorgeous graphics.
* Cute Renie.

Cons:
* Only one save game.
* Very short gameplay.
* Underwhelming riddles.

7/10 7 out of 10

Game: Lords of the Fallen

Lords of the FallenFinished Stopped Lords of the Fallen. I stopped playing Lords of the Fallen at the Lost Brothers boss (Boss #9).

Story: you play Harkyn, a once-been prisoner, who accompanies Kaslo to a Monastery to defeat the Rhogar: daemon like enemies of the evil God Adyr. In the monastery, the leader of the human resistance Antanas welcomes your help and you are the forefront to defend mankind.

The gameplay is a cheeky mimicry of the Dark Souls series.

Pro:

  • The graphics are quite well and the monastery feels cool.

Con:

  • Boy, Harkyn is way too sluggish! Even naked he’s acting ponderous.
  • The weapons and armour start been interesting but soon turn to implausible 12-year-boyish fantasy items.
  • … same as for the story. It provides some “twists” … to artificial prolong the game.
  • The NPC and the dialogues are … uhm … again: 12-year-boyish fantasy (minus the sex). Harkyn seems to have very little IQ.
  • The camera movement is awkward. In narrow spaces, it sometimes goes crazy and unusable.
  • The focus system inspired by Dark Souls is there but somehow lacking, e.g. I still did not grasp how to switch opponents right.
  • The inventory menu system is unclear and confusing and the handling is suboptimal.

I could go on. Lords of the Fallen looks promising. But playing the game? Nah, not so. As I was backtracking again into the monastery the game lost the fun and turned to work.

Sad.

4/10 4 out of 10